“ The Chinese, when attacking a castle or fort, flew kites over the city wall and used the length of string it took to get it there as a measurement to know how far they had to dig a tunnel to get under the wall.”
“ In a miltaristic nation, the ownership of proper (improvised don't count) weapons and armor is mandatory for all citizens under penalty of inprisonment or death.”
“ The mage who invented teleportation knew nothing about the ten-dimensional cosmos, so was perplexed that the subjects sent through the portal arrived horribly scrambled, having been randomly rotated through several of the hidden six dimensions.”